path: root/assault.mdwn

# Assault

It's been a couple of weeks. It's late on Thursday evening. Anna is
sitting in the subway train, on a bench. On the Helsinki subway the
trains are orange, and the benches are orange. Ths benches are in
pairs to form booths, ostensibly to get the famously asocial locals to
be modern and urban. In practice, it meant they read books,
newspapers, or, these days, looked at their smartphones. Or out of the
windows into the underground tunnel walls. Anything to avoid talking
with each other.

Anna is doing that. It's been another long, stressful day at work, and
she's enjoying watching episode of her latest favourite TV show on the
phone, while going home. When she gets home, she'll go to the sauna to
really relax and clean herself both bodily and mentally and
spiritually.

A pair of twentysomethings come into the train car, and shove into the
booth with Anna. She shifts a little. The young men are both drunk,
the other much more than the other. They carry large bags, and a bag
of takeout from an transnational hamburger restaurant chain.

Anna dubs them as Dumb and Dumber. Dumb is carrying the food, and what
looks like a bunch of gym clothes. Dumber is carrying a bag with
something hard, which makes clonk sounds, when it hits the benches or
the floor.

"Be careful, that's my Playstation." Dumb is clearly upset at Dumber.
Dumber seems to not care. Instead, Dumber puts his feet on the
opposite bench, where Anna is sitting, and forces Anna to shift to
avoid his dirty shoes.

The train ride continues for a while. Dumber keeps accidentally
kicking the Playstation, and trying to grab the food bag from Dumb.
Dumb keeps the bag out reach and complaining about the safety of his
gaming equipment.

Dumber gets bored and starts looking at Anna, then poking her with his
feet.

"Please stop." Anna isn't amused and tries to get back to watching TV
show. The poking continues.

"Come on, girl. You should feel honoured by a little male attention,
the way you look."

Anna puts away her phone and looks at Dumber, straight in the eyes.
"Don't be silly, boy. If you wanted more space, you could've sat in
the next booth, which is all empty."

Dumber pokes Anna again with his feet. Anna gets up to leave the
booth. Dumber gets up as well and grabs Anna's coat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"RUDE WORD Anna. What the RUDE WORD happened to you?" Robin arrives
early to the office, and finds Anna already in the kitchen. Anna
sports a shiner. Her right eye is swollen, and the swelling is quite
dark. There's some other bruises on her face as well.

"There was a bit of an assault in the subway yesterday. A drunk young
man."

"Oh no. Have you been to ER? How badly does it hurt?"

"I've had medical care, though not from the ER. I called Russ instead.
He came over and took care of my face, and held me while I cried."

"This is not good. The assault, I'm assuming Russ took care you of you
like gentleman."

"Yes, he was very gentle." Anna makes a wry smile, then winces.
Smiling is clearly painful. The takes a pill bottle from her drawer,
extracts a pill, and takes it with a gulp from the glass of water on
her desk.

"I'm going to be OK, but I don't really want to have a lot of fuss."

"Okay, I can understand that. But what happened? Or are you up to
talking about that? Did you report it to the police?"

"Not really. We talked about it a lot with Russ, and I've started my
mental healing process, but I don't really want to re-live it with
everyone separately. Sorry. I didn't tell the police, you know how
they've treated me before, when I've been raped. Don't trust them."

"Oh, sister mine, nothing to be sorry for. I know exactly how you
feel. I'm here if you want or need to talk, about anything, at any
time, but there's no pressure. OK?"

"OK. Love you too, Robin. You're a good friend."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anna goes on IRC and tells the rest of the team. "Hello, gang. I'm
going to be withdrawn and avoid seeing people in person for the next
few days. I have a black eye. I was assaulted by a drunk young man on
the subway yesterday evening. I'm going to be OK, but I don't want to
be fussed over, or have to talk about it repeatedly. So I'm going to
stay at home for a while, and enjoy a bit of quiet and solitude. I
hope you'll all understand. In an emergency, you can call me on my
private number, but otherwise I'd like to not hear about anything for
a while."

She turns off her laptop, and packs it in her backpack, then slinks
out of the office to go home. On the way she stops at a grocery store,
to fill up on foodstuffs: bananas, appled, pears, and pine apple for a
fruit salad; eggs, milk, flour, and butter for pancakes. She fully
intends to pamper herself with unhealthy food.

As she leaves the grocery store and is heading towards the subway
("I'm not going to be intimidated and start avoiding the subway, I
won't"), her phone rings.

"Hi, it's Sam. My bosses want to have another meeting. Would you and
the Team be free tomorrow afternoon?"

"Hi, Sam. I'm afraid I have a health thing, so I won't be available,
but Robin can handle things while I'm away."

"OK. I hope it's nothing serious and that you get well again soon."

"Thanks, bye".

She quickly types a message to Robin. "Sam called, they want another
meeting. Could you handle it in my absence?"

"Sure thing. Don't worry. Get well."

She walks for a minute, then takes out her phone again.

"Thanks for yesterday. You saved the day. I'm going to take a few days
off, and be at home incommunicado. If you want pancakes, come knock on
my door."

She taps "Send" and turns off her phone. Sometimes it'd be nice to
live with someone with whom to share one's sorrows, and not have to
beg for people to come visit to cheer her up.